Seriously, in my position, I’m dreading having to upgrade from 3.5 to 4.0 since I got iOS and Android exporting for free for Unity 3.5. None of the new features can compete with showing off what you can do on a mobile phone and sell stuff on the market.
Does anyone else feel this way? Is there actually a way to upgrade Unity 3.5 Android/iOS to Unity 4.0 with “upgrade pricing”?
Yeah, its only $125 per platform to upgrade (from 3.5 basic to 4.0 basic). Just go to the store and click the upgrade button.
Yes, as always. If you already have a license then you can just upgrade it, you don’t need to buy 4.0 “as new”.
–Eric
Think yourself lucky I paid for iOS and Android basic before they were free.
You could always wait until about 4.4 they might bundle iOS and Android and Windows RT basic for free to boost sales again.
Combined with the features that they have in the works which should be comeplete about then.
Or there is always UDK $99 just make sure you don’t earn over $50k which should be easy as an indie!
For the stuff I do, I find Unity 4 Linux export is the coolest feature. I suppose it all depends on your target platforms.
So real time shadows on your iOS or Android doesn’t matter 
Linux Publishing?
DX11 Rendering?
Tessellation?
it’s worth it, and you know it is!!
I don’t use any of those at the moment. The only new feature in 4.0 I am likely to use relate to fonts, but as I have already done the text work on my current project, I won’t be using it yet.
There is some really cool stuff in 4, but how useful the new things are for each developer varies, especially for those deep into projects designed around the features available in Unity 3.
I figure at some point in the 4.x cycle we will upgrade, just not at this time.
Use: At my day job we use Unity Pro w/android. But we use it for rapid development of cross platform (pc, android) manufacturing software.
Reason for not upgrading: We do not use any of the 3d rendering features or physics. We use unity because it is fast to develop an application with a GUI even with the current GUI shortcomings. From a single base we build for Android and PC. The only feature that may interest us in upgrading is the new GUI. So unless 3.x becomes obsolete or they add a non game related this makes my job easier feature, we will not upgrade.
At my night gig we use Unity Idie w/ iOS for mobile game development. We designed everything we are working on, and will be working on for sometime around 3.x limitations. There is no need for us to upgrade as we do not have anything that would use any of the new iOS features.
On my home computer I use Unity Free. I mostly treat this install as the ultimate god game. When I cannot sleep I will fire it up and put in models or tool around with an idea. It is my fun install. I upgraded it to 4.0 just to check out 4.0. And I am glad I did because 4.x broke some of my extensions and I would not have known if I did not install it. I now double check my work on it as I will eventually get around to adding my extensions to the asset store.
Overall Mechanim is the only feature that I see that really sets 4.0 above and beyond 3.x, and I do not currently have a use for it (but will maybe in the next year or so). I think that Mechanim is a bit of a game changer. Cost is not really a blocking factor for me when it comes to my day job (aerospace) or the night gig iOS. The price of Unity is already ridiculously cheap (in comparison with what engines cost me in the past). I just do not have anything planned that uses any of the new features. In time I will and at that time I will move forward and get it.
I don’t want to upgrade because my setup is 3 PC’s (Desktop/Laptop/Mac mini) and I paid for exporters and got them for free so I have enough activations right now to work the way I want to work, and when I e-mails unity support to ask if I could have 3 machines licensed even with me being 1 user they said no, so sticking with 3.x until the licensing changes
I currently have no job, so upgrading to pro isn’t an option for me. Since I use free and don’t use any addons, upgrading to 4.0 was a no-brainer. 4.0 does have the cool feature of normal maps to terrain, however you can’t use them in conjunction with lightmaps yet, but I think in pro you can by using deferred lighting. Trust me, normal maps on terrain can look awesome. If your not making a game with normal maps though, then nevermind.
When 4.0 came out our current project was like a week or two to being finished so we didn’t upgrade. But I have 4.0 on a separate installation, ran through the mecanim tut it’s pretty sweet.
I got it, but probably should wait until the GUI update comes out.
Right now there hasn’t been any need for me to upgrade.
I’ll probably upgrade in a few months once I’ve had a really good look at Unity 4 pro and it’s features.